5 Skiers Didn't Get To Compete at The Freeride World Championships, Here's Why
The inaugural Freeride World Championships took place earlier this week and brought together the best freeride skiers and snowboarders from 17 countries to compete for the title of World Champion.
The day started with a weather delay due to poor visibility and clouds that caused a significant delay to the competition’s start. Once things cleared, the first category, Snowboard Men, ran without delay. Snowboard Women and Ski Men followed up.
Ski Women was the last category of the day to drop in, with Elisabet Marina of Spain first in the lineup.
Marina was followed by Lena Kohler, Zanna Farrell, Jenna Keller, Chisato Sasada, Justine Dufour-Lapointe, Molly Armanino, Ulla Gilot, Zuzanna Witych, and Elly Olsson. By this point in the competition, Witych was sitting in first place with a score of 80.33, Dufour-Lapointe in second with a 76.33, and Armanino in third with 74.00 points.
Kiwi skier and 2022 FWT Overall Champion Jess Hotter dropped in after Olsson with a fast and powerful run that easily could have upset the podium. Hotter hucked a massive backflip off the windlip near the bottom of the course, but slightly over-rotated it and tumbled in the landing.
Unfortunately, Hotter sustained a knee injury, which she later reported on social media. (We’re sending you all the healing, Jess!) The competition was put on hold as Hotter was evacuated from the course via helicopter.
Keep reading for how things played out at the 2026 Freeride World Championships.
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Agostina Vietti (ARG), who won the previous FWT stop in Val Thorens, was slated to drop in following Hotter. Behind Vietti were Lily Bradley (USA), Manon Loschi (FRA), Astrid Cheylus (FRA), and Wynter McBride (USA). Rider drop order is determined with a bib draw, where rider numbers are drawn from a hat one at a time, making it an unbiased and fair process.
During the delay, clouds began to roll into the venue, and the competition was officially put on hold. After more than an hour’s delay, the Contest Director made the call to enact the 2/3 rule and validate the competition, meaning that Vietti, Bradley, Loschi, Cheylus, and McBride were unable to take competition runs. “The clouds kept coming into the venue and just wouldn’t leave in the end. It was getting pretty late too. The helicopter is pretty important for safety. They can’t fly after the sun goes down, so there really wasn’t much else to do,” said Wynter McBride in a message to POWDER.
The following message was posted to the Freeride World Tour Instagram account:
“The Ski Women category at the FIS Freeride World Championships was stopped due to a lack of visibility following a decision by the contest director, prioritizing athlete safety.
At the time of interruption, 11 of the 16 competitors had completed their runs, meeting the two-thirds threshold required under FIS Freeride Competition Rules. The results of the Ski Women category have therefore been validated.
Zuzanna Witych (POL) has been crowned FIS Freeride World Champion in the Ski Women category. All other categories at the FIS Freeride World Championships were completed as scheduled.”
JBERNARD, FIS WoFreeride World Championships podium
The FIS Freeride World Championship Rulebook states the following in section 3.5:
“If a competition is stopped by decision of the Contest Director (after consultation with the Commissioner and Head of Security), results of a category may be validated if at least two-thirds (66.7%) of the competitors in said category have started. If conditions and budget allow, FIS FWT may decide to reschedule or rerun the categories concerned. In case of a rerun, previous results will not be considered. In case of a serious accident, FIS FWT may decide or not to validate the competition results even if 2/3rd of the competitors have started. In case of an event’s results validated with only two-thirds of the field, remaining competitors will be assigned a DNS score.”
As expected, the five riders who were not able to complete competition runs were disappointed and several posted to their own social media pages to voice their frustration.
“I think we were all really bummed,” said McBride in a text exchange with POWDER. “Of course, we would have loved a chance to showcase our skiing in such a legendary first event, but there really wasn’t anything else to do in the situation. They tried all day to get us through the competition as best as they could. When clouds come in, the light changes. The light gets flat, and you can’t quite gauge the scale of everything. The snow changed quite a lot after the cloud sat around for a while. The FWT team takes safety super seriously. As an athlete, I would have loved to compete, but it’s also nice to know I can trust the staff to make those tricky safety decisions. I personally don’t think I would have liked to drop any later than when they called it because it was getting so dark. The snow conditions changed a lot after the cloud sat around, too. I didn’t feel like it was totally safe to ski at 100%. I can’t speak for all the ladies, though,” said McBride.
Despite Loschi and Cheylus not being able to ride, France was still awarded the top Nation Ranking of the event, with high-scoring runs from Noémie Equy and Victor de la Rue in the snowboard categories and Oscar Mandin and Ugo Troubat, who came in 4th and 2nd place, respectively, in Ski Men’s.
It’s tough not to feel like Ski Women already got the short end of the stick as the last category to drop, especially with five athletes unable to compete.
As Loschi said in her post, “I will always think that freeskiing and rules are two things that aren’t really going well together. But I guess that when you accept to play the game, you also gotta accept the rules and consequences.”
Related: The First-Ever Freeride World Champions Have Been Crowned, but Not Without Controversy
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